Parent Sues Daycare For Encouraging Fight Club With Preschool Children

Nicole Merseal, a mother from St Louis, Missouri, is suing a daycare centre after video and surveillance footage captures daycare teachers encouraging her son to fight another child.

According to a lawsuit filed in December 2016, Ms Merseal accused the daycare centre of directing a "fight club" and permitting another child to intimidate and harm her son.

Video of the "fight club" was captured by Merseals older son on his Ipad, which was sent to her afterwards, two older siblings of the child involved in the fight were also at the daycare after being dismissed from school and had witnessed the incident.

"When I got the video, I was just in complete shock. I immediately left work," she said. "I also called the daycare immediately and told them to go stop the fighting."

The daycare teachers had said that the children were bored and that the teachers had run out of things to do. The teachers had given the boys "hulk hands" (large green gloves) and to fight one another. Which happened a lot of times (according to reports, released by the Missouri Department Of Health Services.

One of the daycare teachers had admitted to the fighting "I meant for the fighting with the Hulk Hands to be a stress release exercise. It did not last more than three or for minutes. ... No children got hurt but it was still a bad judgment call on my part"

Upon learning of the incident, the facility director fired the two staff, reported the incident to the proper authorities, and wrote an incident report to document the information. The facility also informed parents about the incident and the actions taken".

Merseal is seeking $25,000 in damages in her civil suit against the facility and she feels the daycare should be held accountable for what had happened.